Going Bananas for Plantains

I love bananas for breakfast, it's what I ate for breakfast this morning.  Plantains on the other hand are not for breakfast, but equally (if not more delicious).  I am not a food scientist a la Alton Brown but I did a little research so I'll pass it on so we'll all know how bananas and plantains are different fruits.  

Plantains are in a green, thick skin, they can't be eaten raw and are starchy and used as a vegetable, whereas bananas, well you know, yellow, think skin, sweet, good in cereal!

When we had our Latin fiesta night in addition to the watermelon, salsa and Mexican inspired s'mores we also served tostones, or plantain fritters.

Tostones Ingredients:

3 Large Plantains (party of 8)

Vegetable Oil of some variety, we used Canola

Kosher Salt

Open the tostones, you'll probably need a knife as they don't break open as easily as a banana.  Cut slices that are about 1 inch long. 

Put oil in a large pan (about an 1/3 inch high) over heat over a medium/high flame.  When the oil is hot enough, not burning or bubbling, but hot enough to react if you flicked some water from your finger tips into the oil, place plantains in slice side down.

Cook plantains for about 2  minutes on each side. 

This is a sensitive time, you'll want to keep an eye out so you can get a nice rich caramel color on the fried side.  Too light and thetostones will be too starchy, too dark, they might taste like burned sugar.

Set up all of the fried tostones on layers of paper towel to absorb any of the oil that is being released, just like latkes, onion rings, or anything fried you'll want to mop up the extra oil so you can get right to the flavors of the food.  Stop!  Do not discard the extra oil!

Time to smash!  I suppose if you had kids, which I don't, this could be a fun thing for them to do with supervision. (This was also a great thing for Mark to do, that's him!)  Set up a cutting board and grab a can from the cupboard.  Smash!  Smashing the plantains to about a 1/2 inch will be perfect.

The smashed plantains go back in the oil for about 20-30 seconds on each side just to crisp up the sides, and then back on new paper towels.

This is delicious now, and ready to eat.  But to maximize that salty-sweet combination that is so hard to beat grab that Kosher salt and lightly sprinkle over the tostones, then just try not to eat all of them!

Fresh Salsa, almost like Vacation

This past weekend we had friends over for linner, late lunch/early dinner.  Since we were prepping the food, and they were supplying the drinks, I got started on planning out a themed menu.  The weekend before I  reminisced about the amazing food we ate on our honeymoon to Mexico, and so the theme developed on it's own, we'd be doing a Latin inspired meal.

We served up salsa fresca, chunky guacamole, mango coconut fish and pulled pork tacos, roasted tomatillos, out of this world tostones, cilantro rice and garlicky black beans, watermelon and lemon, and Mexican s'mores.

The Salsa was a huge hit, and it turns out it is actually America's most popular condiment - who knew?!  

 

Ingredients:

3 cups of Cherry Tomatoes

1/2 cup of Red Onion

1/2 cup of White Onion

1/4 cup of Cilantro

1 Jalapeno, with seeds removed and sliced

The Juice of 1 Lime

A sprinkle of salt to taste

I think salsa is a dish where you sort of know what you like.  Want more onions? Throw in more onions.  Hate cilantro?  Skip it.  

One tip I practiced was something I learned from Chef Rick Bayless, which was to wash the onion in a bit of cold water to reduce their bite.  I guess if you wanted that onion-y bite you could skip that too.

Here is a trick that we created out of necessity, and it worked like a charm: we didn't want soupy salsa.  So as the tomatoes were being chopped they were dropped into a colander so that the extra tomato juice could drain out.  

Then all the ingredients go into one big bowl, and they get to know each other, they mingle, they dance and then they meet a chip and fall in love. No chips?  Yikes!  Also amazing with rice and beans, over grilled chicken or eggs.

If you have a bounty of summer tomatoes, this is a simple, low calorie way to use them up, and transport yourself to a beach vacation getaway.